“The Fabrication of Loneliness” is the debut of Paul Auster, author of “The Book of Illusions,” “Mr. Vertigo,” “The New York Trilogy,” “Timbuktu,” and “Temple of the Moon.” Loneliness is a running theme of the book. Sometimes it is a punishment, as in the case of the biblical Jonah, who ended up in the belly of the whale. Sometimes it’s a gift, a voluntary decision to shut yourself off from others in order to hear yourself. Loneliness allows you to create your own world, making it invisible and incomprehensible to others. After the death of a person, this world, which he carefully protected from invasion, becomes vulnerable. This happened after the death of the protagonist's father. All his life, the father seemed to his son a mysterious, “invisible” person, whom it was difficult to understand, who would never fully reveal himself even to his loved ones. And only after the death of his father, the son was able to restore his life in small fragments, discover secrets not intended for strangers, and re-get to know someone with whom, as it turned out, he hardly knew.